When the enormous ape fell to his death from the Empire State Building at the end of Peter Jackson's 2005 blockbuster, you might have thought that was the end of King Kong. Not so, it seems: Hollywood is planning to bring Joe DeVito and Brad Strickland's lavishly illustrated novel Kong: King of Skull Island to the big screen.

The book, which was published to coincide with Jackson's remake of the 1933 classic film, acts as both a prequel and a sequel to the tale. It sees Vincent Denham, son of over-reaching film-maker Carl who captured and brought the giant ape to New York, returning to Skull Island in search of his long-lost father. He is joined by Jack Driscoll, the playwright who journeyed with Denham 25 years previously. Together the pair begin to unravel the mysteries of the island.

The director of DOG SOLDIERS and THE DESCENT will adapt KONG: KING OF SKULL ISLAND.

Devin Faraci wrote: Universal owns King Kong, right? Not exactly. The character's rights are in a weird, confusing place that has only been made more confusing in the wake of numerous lawsuits. For the purpose of what is going on with Neil Marshall's new movie, here's what you have to know:

Merian C, Cooper created King Kong and thought he was licensing the character to RKO for two movies. He never bothered copyrighting Kong, but did copyright a novelization of the movie. Cooper only found out that RKO considered themselves the owners of Kong when he had legal troubles getting a Tarzan Meets King Kong* movie off the ground, and it all got ugly and legal when Cooper found out RKO was licensing Kong to Toho for King Kong vs Godzilla. And it got legal again when Dino DeLaurentiis and Universal bought the King Kong remake rights from RKO in the 70s.

The short version: Cooper ended up owning only limited publication rights to the character, but that was enough for his estate to license the creation of an illustrated novel called Kong: King of Skull Island in 2004. This novel is set 25 years after the events of King Kong and totally ignores the events of Son of Kong; in it Carl Denham and Jack Driscoll return to Skull Island and learn more about the history of Kong and the natives.

Now the rights to that novel have been snatched up and Neil Marshall, the wonderfully two-fisted filmmaker behind Centurion and The Descent and the Battle of the Blackwater in Game of Thrones, is set to direct the film version. He's writing along with Simon Utley. I haven't read the novel (yet) but I know that Neil Marshall has exactly the sort of pulpy attitude that I want to see in my King Kong movies. The big question is what the budget of this will be, and whether Universal is going to try to get involved. It would surely make them happier to have all Kong-related stuff under their roof, I imagine, and they can't legally shut this down. Better to lean into it .

Clifford Coonan wrote:“The Chinese government is heavily promoting the growth of cultural industries, especially animation. In the past they’ve been concentrated on developing industrial zones, not really creative,” said Gary Zhang, who is co-producing a $40-million animated 3D project, Kong, with Korean filmmaker JJ Kim.

“Now they are staying away from that and they want to have more authentic, real effort into the creative industry,” said Zhang.With Kong, Aquamen – thus named as both Zhang and Kim are Aquarians in the Chinese Zodiac -- is looking to energize the Asian animation sector.

For years, Chinese animation struggled from a lack of investment and missing creative juices, completely outplayed by SpongeBob SquarePants and the Japanese anime classics, but now the sector is undergoing a revival, with domestic animated features scoring high in the box office and a slate of high-quality projects.

Sporting a $40 million budget, Kong is the latest movie or television property to be adapted from the classical Chinese novel Journey to the West. The film will tell the origin story of the titular character, who was born from molten rock in the Earth's core, but will also feature sci-fi elements, including aliens and robots.

Aquamen will imminently announce a Hollywood director for the and reveal a large investor, believed to be a major Chinese distributor, and it is currently looking for a studio in Korea.

Lucas Siegel wrote:del Toro asked the audience two questions to answer to Legendary. "Number 1: Hellboy 3?" HUGE applause and cheers. "Number 2: The Mountains of Madness?" only slightly less cheers. "Okay, now it's f*cking over." and he left the stage.

Thomas Tull came back on stage to thank the panelists and to thank the fans who came, and to give them one more thing.

Aaron Couch wrote:Legendary has set King Kong film Skull Island for November 4, 2016.

It announced the film with a surprise teaser at the very end of its Hall H Comic-Con panel. Footage of an ancient island flashed on screen, with a voice over comparing it to the very early days of the Earth. It was stormy, with lighting and glimpses of creatures.

"We penetrated deeper and deeper into the very heart of darkness."

Finally: the money shot. King Kong roaring and looking quite vicious. The crowd went ape. Legendary tweeted afterwards "Prepare to explore the mysterious and dangerous Skull Island. In theaters November 4, 2016."

In King Kong lore, Skull Island is the mysterious home of the giant ape. It was featured in the 1933 film King Kong and multiple subsequent films, including Peter Jackson's 2005 film.

MIKE FLEMING JR wrote:EXCLUSIVE: Legendary Pictures wowed the crowd in Hall H by unveiling Skull Island, a new feature by Godzilla scribe Max Borenstein based on the mythic origins of King Kong, where mutant giant creatures rule. They set a November 4, 2016, release and are wasting no time staffing up. I’m told they’ve offered the directing job to Joe Cornish, who has been offered big movies since his low-budget alien-invasion breakthrough pic Attack The Block. I’m not sure if Cornish will take the job because he’s offered so much — like Universal’s Section Six, the Aaron Berg-scripted drama about the formation of MI6 Brit intelligence branch, for instance. But this is going to be catnip to some hotshot director. When Peter Jackson re-made King Kong, the part where they landed on Skull Island and ran for their lives from over-sized exotic carnivorous creatures was the highlight of the movie. No comment from Cornish’s CAA reps.

Christina Radish wrote:What do you think about Legendary doing another King Kong with Guillermo del Toro?JACKSON: I don’t know anything about it. I’m hearing it from you, for the first time. I would look forward to it. If Guillermo did King Kong, that would be great. That would be fantastic. I’ll be there on the first day, and will help him with anything he needs. I’ve always wondered, if in my lifetime, whether we’re going to see The Lord of the Rings film remade, or The Hobbit remade. How long will it actually last or survive until someone remakes it? It will be interesting to see. But with Kong, we were the ones who remade it for the third time. SERKIS: I didn’t even realize there was another version being made. Guillermo is a great director, so I’m sure he’ll make an extraordinary film.

Adam Chitwood wrote:While del Toro is planning on starting pre-production on Pacific Rim 2 next month, he told us that he’s actually scheduled a brief hiatus in which he will shoot a much smaller movie:

“Right away, in February/March I should [start on] another very small movie, black and white, really, really bizarre before starting—we start pre-production on Pacific Rim 2 in August, and then I interrupt it briefly to go into the first of next year to do this strange little movie, and then I restart it and go all the way until we start shooting Pacific Rim 2 at the end of 2015 for release in 2017.”

Del Toro was reluctant to reveal too much about the project, but he did say he already has cast in mind:

“It’s a very small cast. I would love to have John Hurt, and there’s an actress that I have in mind that is not well-known but I’ve seen her in a short film. That’s all she’s really done, one feature and one short, but she has an incredibly interesting taste and I’m gonna try her out for the main role.”

When asked whether or not this new film fits into his previous filmography, he offered this brief, tantalizing tease:

“There’s one great creature in it.”

Del Toro confirmed that the project does have a title, but he’d rather the finished film speak for itself instead of divulging too much beforehand:

“It does [have a title], but I find—I’d rather do the projects and then show them to people than talk about them. I think that it’s going to be a nice thing for people to know which one is it and where it came from when it’s a reality.”

Mike Fleming Jr wrote:EXCLUSIVE: Legendary Pictures has set Flight scribe John Gatins to do the next draft of Skull Island, the King Kong origin pic that Tom Hiddleston will star in and Jordan Vogt-Roberts will direct.

In addition to Jurassic, Connolly also wrote Trevorrow’s 2012 Sundance breakout, Safety Not Guaranteed. Other credits include Paramount’s Monster Trucks, directed by Chris Wedge and awaiting release, and has Intelligent Life set up at DreamWorks. The latter, a sc-fi love story, reunites him with Trevorrow.

DEVIN FARACI wrote:If Andy Serkis is the number one mocap performer in Hollywood, we could make a strong argument that Kebbell is number two. What's more, his work on Apes not only had him getting tutelage from Serkis but also mastering ape movement.

Of course Kebbell is a talented (and handsome) actor in general, so he could be playing any role in the movie, and we don't yet know what the roles in this film are. It's set in the 70s, but beyond that we don't know how it riffs on the Kong story, so we can't really make any guesses on what kind of part Kebbell could be signed on for. In fact the only character we know for sure will be in this movie is King Kong himself.

DEVIN FARACI wrote:If Andy Serkis is the number one mocap performer in Hollywood, we could make a strong argument that Kebbell is number two. What's more, his work on Apes not only had him getting tutelage from Serkis but also mastering ape movement.

Of course Kebbell is a talented (and handsome) actor in general, so he could be playing any role in the movie, and we don't yet know what the roles in this film are. It's set in the 70s, but beyond that we don't know how it riffs on the Kong story, so we can't really make any guesses on what kind of part Kebbell could be signed on for. In fact the only character we know for sure will be in this movie is King Kong himself.

What a world we live in where there is a human being who specializes in ape movement for motion pictures, and yes, he's passing on this craft to another.

How to act like an apeCarole Jahme talks to Peter Elliott about his study of chimp behaviour and how it landed him some top Hollywood roles

Carole Jahme wrote:Ever wondered how movie directors achieve those intimate shots of actors cosying up to apes? Sigourney Weaver managed several close encounters in Gorillas in the Mist, so did Rene Russo in Buddy, and Christopher Lambert made perfect contact in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. Adult gorillas and chimpanzees have a talent for carnage, and prized actors frolicking with real apes is an insurer's nightmare. Enter ape actor, Peter Elliott. For it was Elliott, in animated ape costume, who got to gaze adoringly at Weaver and Russo. Elliott has also choreographed hominids and played one in Jean-Jacques Annaud's 1981 film Quest for Fire.

Before Hugh Hudson's Greystoke in 1979, the apes used in movies were all youngsters. Hudson wanted his chimps to be the size of adult chimps, yet he could not risk the lives of the cast and crew. Auditions for actors to play chimps began and lots of theatrical miming and cliched rib scratching ensued, much to Hudson's dismay. But Elliott, then aged 22 and not long graduated from "method" drama school East 15, had the good sense to visit London Zoo to observe the chimpanzees prior to auditioning.

Elliott's audition had the necessary realism, but with only one actor able to give any depth to his chimp character it became clear to Hudson and the producers that if they didn't want the film to be a comedy, they'd better go back to the story board. Elliott was invited to LA for a further audition, telling his family he'd be gone for a week. But after a meteoric promotion to head of research and development for Greystoke, Elliott remained in the US for another two years. His R&D job took him to Oklahoma to study chimpanzees.

Primatologist Roger Fouts, who went on work with Elliott on Greystoke as a consultant, had worked on the chimp language study Project Washoe. Washoe was a chimp caught in the wild and estimated to be between eight and 14 months old when she arrived in Nevada. She spent her early years living in a house, treated as a surrogate human child and taught by scientists to communicate in American Sign Language. She was reported to combine signs in original, meaningful ways, for example she named the refrigerator, "open food drink", when the psychologists had always referred to it as the "cold box".

When Project Washoe ended in 1970, Washoe and Fouts transferred to Oklahoma's Primate Research Centre. By 1977 Fouts was working on Greystoke and for the purposes of R&D he allowed Elliott to go in with the chimps. "I immediately learned that chimpanzees were emotionally unstable, highly intelligent and incredibly strong," Elliott told me.

"To say that I was amazed by Washoe, Nim, Ali and Mac and the other chimps would be an understatement. I tried to learn sign language, but Washoe realised I didn't understand so she signed extra slowly for me. I remember Washoe was given a purple ball, but she didn't know the sign for purple, so she signed, 'What colour, different red?' On another occasion she signed that she wanted to eat oranges, I told her there were none, then she signed, 'Get car and get some!'

"But I didn't want to sign, I didn't want to make them become human, I wanted to learn from them how to speak chimp. So I started mimicking their behaviour. At Oklahoma I learned all the basic chimp sounds and the five basic faces: the 'concentration face', where the lips are together and the top lip is pushed out with air; the 'pant hoot face', with puckered lips, that's the most famous chimp expression; the aggressive, wide open mouthed 'attack face'; the 'play face', top lip down mouth open; and the 'scream fear grin', mouth shut, with teeth on show."

Elliott told me more about chimpanzee psychology. "My research at Oklahoma was just the beginning of my long journey to understand that great apes and the ape species are all very different. Chimps have high curiosity mixed with a short attention span. They have a whole rhythm to their bodies and they are constantly vigilant, always checking out the social world. They can be deceptive, but they tend to be clear communicators.

"Chimps live in the moment. I was rough-housed by the chimps many times. I used the 'scream fear grin' when I needed to. They frequently tricked me into giving them things they shouldn't have. I learned their body language and communicated with them on their terms and eventually became a player in their hierarchy. One of the most striking anatomical differences between chimps and us is their superior upper body strength: no human can climb the way a chimp can. They were much more gentle with me than they were with each other. I groomed the chimps, ate with the chimps and they accepted me."

In Greystoke, Elliott played Tarzan's adoptive, chimp father, "Silverbeard". But in learning how to be a chimp during his research, Elliott was like Tarzan in reverse. The fictional character undergoes a culturally civilising metamorphosis, leaving his chimpanzee family behind, wherease in real life Elliott was regressing psychologically, becoming more animal and less human. It was time to return to human civilisation.

"Looking back, it was pretty risky letting me go in with them like that. My approach of imitating the chimp's behaviour and becoming intimately physical was completely different from the trainee psychology students' methods. The chimps accepted me on their own terms and the students appeared jealous of the progress I made in communicating with them. I certainly had a lot more fun with the chimps than the scientists did."

THE MAN BEHIND THE 'APES'Performance-capture actor Terry Notary is the best in the world at moving his human body like an ape, and it's his simian skills that make the chimps come alive in "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes".

Brent Lang wrote:For one thing, the original King Kong film’s period setting has been scrapped.

“It’s not set in the ’30s,” said Hiddleston at Wednesday’s premiere of “Crimson Peak.” “There’s no movie director with a map. There’s no out-of-work actress down on her luck. All of that stuff is respected, we’re just trying to do something new with the myth because Kong is an icon of movies. I think he’s someone people want to see again.”

He is particularly impressed by director Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ (“Kings of Summer”) vision for the picture, saying he has “come up with the most incredible, deeply imaginative context for [King Kong] to exist in.”

Hiddleston didn’t spill about whether or not the film would unfold in the 1970s as some news outlets have reported, but he did say he was flying to the set on Sunday to begin shooting.

“Kong: Skull Island” marks a departure for Hiddleston after playing a morally conflicted aristocrat in “Crimson Peak” and the hard drinking, philandering Hank Williams in “I Saw the Light.”

“I’m excited to play an adventurer and a heroic protagonist,” said Hiddleston. “I’ve been excavating some dark material and it’s time to lighten up a bit.”

Peter Sciretta wrote:Last night, filmmaker Jordan Vogt-Roberts went off on a Twitter rant about his worries that content and quality might be the losers in our modern society when it’s the easiest it’s ever been to create and share filmed stories and content. I thought this rant was worth sharing, not just because it comes from a filmmaker whom I admire (this Sundance breakout The Kings of Summer was great) or because he’s currently finishing a big blockbuster franchise film (Kong: Skull Island), but because his point is interesting to consider.

Browsing YouTube or the bevy of short films we get sent on a weekly basis, I often wonder the same things. So after the jump I present to you Jordan’s complete rant in a more readable configuration.

Yeah, well I don't mean to be over assumptive, but as I think that Skull Island will contain an overkill of CGI and unconvincing back projection that will age light years when it hits TV and the division between actors and background can be noticed so much more than on the theatre screen, I think this guy should just shut the hypocritcal hell up.

It looks amazing, visually. I'm having a hard time with the concept that an island full of monsters was never discovered. It might not seem quite so dumb if they hadn't made King Kong 50 times taller so that he can fight Godzilla in this new cinematic universe of theirs -- a term I'm rapidly growing to hate. But yeah, it looks amazing.

Ribbons wrote:I blame Marvel for this; they're the ones who created this Hollywood-wide mania for turning every movie into part of one giant franchise.

i don't know if it's fair to blame Marvel, they were the first to do it, and it's been tremendously successful for them. it's kind of like blaming Star Wars for the rise of blockbuster films. it's because Hollywood is full of copycats, and once they see something that is successful, they immediately look for ways to copy it and make a buck off of it. don't blame the ones who took a chance and did something new and different, blame the ones who lacked the imagination or the balls to try it first, then copied it once someone else showed how it could be done.

Brian Cronin wrote:The battle over the rights to King Kong came to a head in the mid-1970s, when famed producer Dino De Laurentiis and Universal were fighting over who had the rights to create a remake. De Laurentiis went to buy the rights to Kong from RKO. Universal, however, argued that because Cooper owned the rights to the novelization but had failed to renew the copyright, the novelization was in the public domain; therefore, Universal should be allowed to produce a film based on that novelization. So Universal sued RKO, which would become an important point years later in the Nintendo lawsuit.

It was ultimately ruled that RKO owned the rights and associated trademarks to the first two King Kongfilms, the novelization was in the public domain (but only the parts of the book that weren’t also in the RKO films, which basically is meaningless) and the rights to the King Kong character belonged to Cooper’s estate. The estate sold all but the publishing rights to Universal, which then worked out a deal with De Laurentiis in which the studio would get a cut of profits from his remake (the 1976 film starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange) in exchange for delaying its King Kong picture for 18 months (Universal didn’t end up producing its version until 2005, with Peter Jackson at the helm). In addition, RKO agreed not to sue if Universal made a King Kong film (Universal would then give RKO a very small cut of the film’s profits).

Timothy Geigner wrote:Universal Studios seems to have some trouble establishing concrete ideas and positions when it comes to copyright on its own products. In recent iterations, this has manifested itself in the form of their protesting a parody of 50 Shades of Grey while conveniently ignoring that work's birth in the form of Twighlight fan-fiction. Alternatively, there are times when Universal doesn't even seem to know what it holds the rights to and what it doesn't. Well, it turns out that these stumbles aren't exactly a new experience for Universal.

Chris ODonnell writes in with the historical and hysterical case of Universal suing Nintendo over Donkey Kong shortly after Universal itself had argued that the property the dispute was based on, King Kong, was in the public domain. See, back when Michael Jackson was still best known for his music, Nintendo came up with their iconic Donkey Kong character, admittedly in some part inspired by the famous King Kong character. This inspiration, it turns out, came after the fact, but that didn't stop Universal Studios from filing suit against Nintendo, because they had released a remake of King Kong a few years earlier. While some within Nintendo wanted to simply settle with Universal and move forward, others within sought out the words of a key ally to fight against them, and that ally was Universal Studios.

Universal’s King Kong movie debuted in 1976, but it wasn’t an original story. Rather, the movie was a remake of a movie with the same title made in 1933 by RKO General. The 1976 remake came with its own round of litigation, with many parties claiming to have at least partial rights over the name, characters, and plot of the movie. Universal, however, argued that no one did, and that the characters and plot were in the public domain. In the subsequent litigation with Nintendo, the court noted this inconsistency, using it as part of the basis for finding that Nintendo’s Donkey Kong game did not infringe upon Universal’s rights (if any) over King Kong. Nintendo prevailed, and, when Universal appealed, the next court admonished Universal for its inconsistent legal logic.

Ah, sweet, sweet hypocrisy. With one hand, hitting Nintendo over the head with the IP hammer, while holding a shield against another IP hammer with the other. The court was not pleased, noting that Universal's president, Sidney Sheinberg, was clearly well versed in the intellectual property status of King Kong via the earlier lawsuit, and to then pretend the company held rights in it was clearly a move to abuse the law:

Finally, Universal's conduct amounted to an abuse of judicial processes, and in that sense caused a larger harm to the public as a whole. Depending on the commercial results, Universal alternatively argued to the courts, first, that King Kong was part of the public domain, and then second, that King Kong was not part of the public domain, and that Universal possessed exclusive trademark rights in it. Universal's assertions in court were based not on any good faith belief in their truth, but on the mistaken belief that it could use the courts to turn a profit.

As noted, Nintendo was victorious and Donkey Kong was released, since becoming its own franchise and propelling Nintendo so such status that it can initiate its own legal action based on its intellectual property.

Jordan Vogt-Roberts wrote:The creatures are a big thing. Jurassic World obviously owns the dinosaur thing right now. If Kong is the God of this island, we wanted each of the creatures to feel like they’re individual gods of their own domain. Miyazaki and Princess Mononoke was actually a big reference in the way that the spirit creatures sort of have their own domains and fit within that. A big thing was trying to design creatures that felt realistic and could exist in an ecosystem that feels sort of wild and out there, and then also design things that simultaneously felt beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Where if you look at this giant spider or water buffalo, you stare at, a part of you says, ‘that’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen’ and ‘oh my god, that’s going to kill me right now, I need to run for my life!